


At the End of Another Day

by Slowsunrise



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gladiators, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Killing The Holiday Spirit (tm), M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Sexual Slavery, am i doing this right, deancas holiday giveaway 2013, it's not holiday themed in the least, of a sort, or a sort, this is for queernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 19:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slowsunrise/pseuds/Slowsunrise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After another day of fighting in the arena, Dean is surprisingly sold off to a new master as a private slave instead of a fighter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the End of Another Day

**Author's Note:**

> So this isn't winter themed, but you said you enjoyed fantasy themed aus so I tried my hand at it, creating some kind of alternative world where the development of society moved a bit differently. Time period isn't specified by purpose but this is basically slave!gladiators! Holy flipflops, I can't do titles or summaries but I hope you enjoy it, Queernatural!  
> ~ Your now not so very secret Destiel Santa Slowsunrise/summerdayscankill

The sun was setting which meant that the trumpets would sound soon signalizing the end of today's fighting. Today hadn't seen many on the benches overlooking the arena but that didn't mean that the fighting was any less brutal. Dean didn't know if it was a private party up there enjoying the poor souls kill each other or if it had just been a slow start and the owners decided to just have a go with them. It wasn't like there was a lack of cannon fodder now with the monthly trials just over. 

He tore his eyes of the sun and the looming walls then, his focus back in the arena. The trumpets had yet to sound and before that it wouldn't do to relax. He might be one of the fighters who had been there the longest but that didn't automatically make him a winner during all days. Attention, wit, strength and keeping your head in the fight, that was how you survived yet another day down in the pit. Three times Dean himself had caught someone off guard just when the sun was making its way down but before the trumpets had signalized the end of the fight. He knew better than to relax. 

No one came after him this time though. He had already dealt with three beginners trying to group up on him, but he knew the terrain better than them and had lured two of them into traps before finishing the third. Since then he had been left alone and now the trumpets sounded, echoing over the arena loud enough for every still living soul to hear them and make their way to the shelter. 

Dean sheeted his knife. It would need a proper clean, one that wasn't smearing the blood off on his trousers, but that could come later. Right now he was making his way to the exit as quickly as possible. If the crowd today had really been important enough to get a private showing, he sure as hell didn't want to miss that. He didn't think he would get a pardon, had stopped thinking that a long time ago. He had been in the arena for years now and he knew he drew a crowd on big nights. Unless someone payed an outrageous price for him, he would remain in the arena until someone managed to stick a knife in his back. 

He wasn't out for a pardon – even if an escape from the almost daily risk of dying would be nice – but there was almost always a great serving of food when the company was important enough, even for the fighters. Sometimes especially for the fighters, the wealthy people having been amused they want to reward the survivors with a feast. Either way, there would be food and Dean wanted to be sure to be one of the first one there. 

Licking his lips and tasting dried blood, he hummed. Dean wondered if it was his or someone else's but if he had to place his bets it would be on a mix. He had survived another day but he wasn't uninjured. He seldom was. Injuries took long time to heal and there wasn't a long time in between each fight. With that equation, Dean almost always went into a fight with at least one or two healing injuries, this time not being an exception. He had bruised ribs and a proper shiner, nicks and cuts all over his body, with healing stitches on his left lip. 

He cracked his neck, bouncing up the steps to the now unlocked gate. There had been a body there before, a new one who had begged them to open the gates and let him in. He had been pierced by an arrow and fallen a few steps down. Apparently they had opened the gates after that to remove the body. Having to step over a dead body on the gate to the feast was apparently not something they awarded their surviving champions with. Just as well. Dean didn't have any illusions that people didn't die in the arena during next to every fight but he still preferred to deal with the corpses as little as possible. 

The gate was unlocked when he tried the handle. Once it had been unlocked, not letting any of the fighters in, but extending the fight even after the trumpets. Not this time though. Now it swung open inwards, the hallway behind the door dark for eyes used to sunlight, even when that light source was setting. he knew where to walk though: straight ahead, like after all other days at the arena. At the end of the hallway a pair of double doors awaited him leading to the big gathering room where the feast would be served. 

When Dean was about to pull the doors open, a pair of fingers snapped at him and he spun around quickly. Gregor, one of the maintainers, was standing a bit away, flipping a large gold coin in his hand and holding a leather leash in the other. Dean looked at the leather, once again reminded about the collar around his neck. 

“Yes?” he asked, dropping the 'sir' or 'master'. He had been there long enough for them to get their head halfway out of their asses, not flogging him for being informal. Thank the heavens for that wonderful treatment. 

“Time to go.” Gregor flipped the coin one last time before slipping it into his pocket. Instead he grabbed the leash with both hands, stretching the leather between them as he stepped over to Dean. Dean still had the knife in his belt; he could stab him and make a run for it, only he wasn't stupid. He would be caught before he was unable to leave the building, and then he would be left unarmed for the mercy of a team of fighters tracking him down and killing him brutally. Better then to stand tall and stretch his neck, letting Gregor fasten the clasp to his collar. 

“You have been sold, pumpkin. Come with me.”

The man tugged on the leash and Dean complied, walking after him while his mind was racing. A pardon had always been distant but being sold? There were no other legal fighting arenas around and really, with his career in this one, who would want him outside of one? Theories popped up but he rejected each one of them. He would have time to find out soon enough, if his new owner didn't decide to take him into an alley and shoot him to be the first – and last – thing they would do with him. 

Gregor and Dean walked through three doors and up two stairs. Higher up meant nicer seats, Dean thought, continuing to climb upwards. When they finally came out in the fresh air again, the sun had set even further, almost gone over the rooftops now. The seats were almost empty but a lone figure looking at the sunset. Dean couldn't see them very well, the sun turning them into a silhouette. They – he – turned around then, walking toward them with long strides. 

The man in front of them had nice clothes and well-kept hair, evidently rich enough to get a seat this good, not to mention affording to buy Dean. Because this was his new owner. The contract had obviously already been signed and sealed since Gregor just handed the end of Dean's leash to him. 

He had a rather beautiful smile, Dean would give him that. The man smiled when his fingers formed around the leather, spinning it around his hand once to become even closer to it. All of him was beautiful, really, when Dean gave him a once-over. His smile, his eyes blue eyes, his skin in the sunset's glow and his body, well-translated in the clothing he wore. Maybe being privately owned could come to be fun after all. 

* * *

Dean trotted after his new owner, half the time looking at his back and half the time looking at the streets he took him through. He never truly let go of the rich man though: he had been in enough fights to know that you never took your eyes off an potential enemy, but at the same time, he couldn't not look at the city.

A few things were the same, but a lot wasn't. He hadn't been outside the arena for six years now, six long years. Many buildings were the same, but they had new paint jobs, new signs, and there were a lot more people around. Three years ago they had started swarming into the city when the largest slave selling company had opened up their new headquarters. Half had come for the jobs offered then and the other half had been slaves imported by the company. The city was full of then by now: Dean could see a collar around every other person they walked past. 

When he had been brought to the city to train in the arena, the city had been half dead, occupied mostly by gamblers and fighters and other of the society's misfits. The arena was the only thing keeping the city alive: the only legal fighting arena left for a hundred miles at least. It was a remnant of older days but it still stood tall, the center of the city. It was what had saved the city in the end. 

The arena had grown more and more popular and people had come from afar to witness the more spectacular matches. Dean knew. He had seen his audience grow. The first times he had been let out in the pit to fight, he had been young and afraid, but even so he remembered the scattering of drunkards and gamblers who loitered up in the seats. Then a year, two, three passed. He grew stronger, and with him – as well as other fighters – the audience grew. It was not just because of him, of course not, but he was part of it. 

PR tricks, resilient fighters and bloody fights, the monthly trials sending enough cannon fodder of criminals to make the fights exciting and lethal enough for the people now filling the benches. On a day when a big fight had been announced, when Dean's names and the those of his peers, the seasoned fighters, when those names had been shouted out all over the city and even the nearby ones, during those days they got so full they had to deny people from purchasing tickets. The arena couldn't handle that many people and the disappointed potential on-lookers had to suffice with standing outside the gates, hoping to hear the screams of death and the clash of metal against metal. 

Those days were over for Dean now though. He was from this day privately owned, until the day the man in front of him grew tired of her. He had appreciated that in the arena. He had heard horror stories about slaves who had been hurt, mutilated or even killed because their owners lost interest in them, but something like that would never happen at the arena. There Dean was an asset, a money maker, and as a now profitable company, you didn't kill one of your golden geese. 

Now, they hadn't killed him, but they had sold him instead. Dean wondered for a second how much money that had changed hands before the leash and the papers of ownership had been handed to the man. A lot, that was for certain, but Dean had no concept of an actual sum. Money had never been his strong suit. He made it, indirectly, but never saw a glimpse of it. What good would it have been for him, down in the pit? He was not paid in coin, but in food and weapons and in training hours and in his life. And now, that was all in the hands of his new owner. 

The man hadn't turned around to look at him once during their walk, but had simply lead Dean though streets he would have gotten lost in in an instant, were it not for his leather leash. Dean was instead left to look at his back, the sway of his hips as he walked, the fine hair that was well taken care of – albeit almost as short as Dean's practical cut – and the strong shoulders draped in fine fabric. 

A gentle tug of the leash reminded him not to dream herself too far away from the present, and Dean hurried his steps to follow the man up a set of stairs leading into an impressive marble house. That kind of building hadn't existed six years ago, but must have been built during the city's expansion and renovation. Another proof that the man was rich. Dean wondered how rich, and how he had come by the fortune he was obviously in possession off. He wondered what kind of power the man was wielding. 

The doors at the top of the stairs were opened by a solemn old man in a collar. A slave, but a high-ranking one in this household, if Dean had any kind of deducing skills. His dress was fine and his collar old, but in good shape. He even had jewelry. 

“Welcome home, master,” he said with a fond smile and a bow. Dean guessed that he wasn't just high-ranking, but had been with the man for some time, judging by the way he was looking at the man. He wasn't property, something about him said. Dean wondered then if his new owner came from old money, or if he had simply owned the old slave before the fortune got to her, however that happened. 

“Thank you, David. If you could tell Ned to draw a bath and find clothing to dress him, that would be great.” The man didn't look at Dean when he spoke of him. “Send word to the smith on Point Street that I will need to place a custom order for him in the following days and that he should keep his schedule open.”

Dean's ears piqued up at the mention of the smith. It could just be his imagination and want for a safe life even as a private slave, but he hoped that the mentioned custom order would be for him. He still wasn't sure why the man had purchased her. He was a fighter by trade and hardly someone you wanted in your house if you desired to sleep well during your nights. Dean knew better than to kill free people, but he still had his rumor hanging over his head, not to mention the dozens of kills staining his ledger. He had lost count of how many lives he had ended in the arena. 

If the smith was truly for him, then maybe the man was in need of a sell sword, only that mercenaries were treacherous. They would betray you for a greater coin. Slaves were owned by you and most of the time, they listened to the person who held their life in their hands. The man held Dean's and if he wanted a sword in his hand, then Dean would almost gladly comply. He was at his best with a weapon and in an ordinary street he wouldn't have to think that someone would stab him in the back any given second. He hoped. 

“Yes, master,” the slave named David nodded, leaving the door open for them. 

The man tugged Dean's leash again, leading him into the house. The hallway inside was just as impressive as the facade of the house: paintings on hanging off walls clad in fine wall paper, there was a snug rug under Dean's boots, and rows of candles and a large chandelier lit the corridor, showing off five different doors leading around the vast house. The man stopped in the hallway though, reaching up to clip the leash off Dean's collar. 

“Dean,” he said. Dean flinched at the use of his name, but all the while he shouldn't be surprised the man knew it. He had bought him after all. “My name is Castiel, but if you use my name you ought to add a 'master' before it. This is my home and therefore yours as well. Welcome.”


End file.
